Austin or Bust: America's Biggest Cities Lose People to the Urban B-List via Businessweek

As a professional thirtysomething who has lived in both New York and Los Angeles, I sometimes feel as if everyone I know is hatching plans to flee to somewhere less expensive, less massive, less hectic, and—again for good measure—less expensive. I know people who have moved in recent years from Los Angeles to Charlotte, from Boston to Durham, from New York to Seattle, from the Bay Area to Denver. Thanks to new U.S. Census data, I now know I am not going crazy. The flight to second-tier cities is thriving.

Fresh numbers released late last month give the 2013 population estimates for metro areas. The fastest growth came in regions that host fracking boom towns and retiree meccas, but those areas still have relatively small populations. If you look at the 52 metro areas with more than a million residents, however, the biggest increase in domestic migration from 2010 to 2013 drew newcomers to America’s second-tier cities. Below are the 20 fastest-growing large metros. Only three—Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta—are among the national top 10 by population size.

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